February 2008

At PlattForm, a typical week for me is anything but. If I were hard-pressed to give someone a straight answer about what my job entails, they’d think I was losing my ever-loving mind.

Monday: Casting Agent
I spent most of Monday arranging mass auditions for up-and-coming new talent. In the industry, it’s called a Cattle Call. Basically, you herd a bunch of pretty people in to a building and shock ‘em with a cattle prod until they can act for you. And while some are wildly attractive, they usually can’t speak to save their life. Pretty, yes. Intelligible, no.

Tuesday: Julie, Your Cruise Director
Looks like I’m going to be on the road a majority of March and April. Hello, DC! Hello, NY! Hello, uh, Dayton! Traveling is always fun … but not when you have to coordinate schedules with your crew. Who’s responsible for packing the lighting equipment? Did I book a rental car? Crap … there had better be two beds in this hotel room. Which one of you is allergic to shellfish? Ah yes, it’s like taking your dysfunctional family on the road.

Wednesday: Musical Director
“The music you chose sounds too Italian-y … and I need it more France-y or German-y or Europe-y”, said a client. Thus, I spent a majority of my day going back and forth about what type of music to add to a new culinary campaign. I finally settled on a tune called “French Kiss” until someone decided it sounded like bad porn music and made me change it. Sacré Bleu!

Thursday: Contract Negotiator
I’ve come down with a horrendous case of pink eye … which, of course, is the first stage before the dreaded Red Eye. Both of which are horribly contagious. So off I traipse to the doctor who dutifully prescribes antibiotic eye drops. He suggests I work from home. I told him I can’t because I have my annual salary review with the Chief Financial Officer. When offered my raise, I immediately started tearing up – but not because of the offer, but because conjunctivitis turns my eyeball in to a sieve.

Friday: Publishing Magnate
Stop the presses! Literally! One of the Board Members wants to become a contributing columnist for a national magazine. How or why is completely irrelevant at this point. Just get her in print FAST! I immediately start sweet-talking every editor I know. And I’m reduced to using my oh-so fakey phone voice. You know, the voice you use when you have to get your way. If you heard me on the phone, you’d literally swoon. If you saw me in person, you’d wonder why the hell I’m wearing an eye patch.

So there you go. Oh and I wrote, produced and directed a few commercials in my downtime … which is my real job here at PlattForm. As you can tell, I have to wear a lot of hats. We all do. It’s the nature of the beast in the advertising industry. And you can bet after work on Friday, I’ll gladly be playing bartender the rest of the weekend.

Have you ever flipped through the pages of a magazine and wondered how much of the publication is really created by the employees, staff writers and producers behind the company name? More than half of the reading seems to be from vendors and other commercial companies battling for effective exposure to a targeted public.

At PlattForm, the magazine writers and producers are a small collective group of mostly volunteers and the work sometimes doubles for press releases sent out also. Quite the idea right there in itself!

Magazine advertising ranks among the top mediums recognizable to the general public. According to the Magazine Publisher’s of America web site (www.magazine.org) the following table shows the breakdown of advertising spending per medium in 2006:

Share of Advertising in 2006
Magazines (18%)
Sunday Magazines (1%)
Newspapers (17%)
National Newspapers (3%)
Outdoor (3%)
Network TV (18%)
Spot TV (14%)
Syndicated TV (3%)
Cable TV (13%)
Network Radio (1%)
National Spot Radio (2%)
Internet (7%)
TOTAL (100%)

Who would have guesses that more companies spend money on magazine advertising than they do on television? And so much more than internet and outdoor advertising? However, it does make sense that a targeted public and demographic reads a certain type of magazine on a regular basis more than it would watch a certain television program looking for a specific thing.

PlattForm’s experience in the magazine industry is focused on the Key Magazine and Career College Central publications. As a whole, about 75% of our sales come from the ads that are sold within the publications. The other 25% accounts the subscriptions and copies sold.

The actual magazine industry standard is a little different than PlattForm’s numbers. According to a proprietary study of 93 representative magazines, in 2005, 55% of revenue came from advertising, and 45% came from circulation.

It makes you think a little bit more about the type of work put behind the favorite magazine you pick up from the grocery store check-out stand. A lot more dollars can be attributed to the pretty models and slogans than once previously thought. And you thought the cover price was outrageous…. Pffh!

Last week, I was dragged into a meeting in our sub-freezing Rec Room. On deadline and a bit frazzled, I went in hoping that it would be short and sweet, crossing my fingers that I would not walk away yet another project to complete by 5 pm on Friday!

Much to my surprise, this meeting was not about budgets, clients or anything in the career college industry. It was about giving away PlattForm’s money to help eliminate global poverty. Yes, that’s right, instead of discussing how to increase our company’s profit, we brainstormed ways to give it away and save the world at the same time!

Several members of our interactive team stumbled upon www.kiva.org, an up-and-coming online organization. This non-profit was founded in 2004 with a simple idea: allow individuals to loan money to entrepreneurs in third world countries. This is not your typical donation; in fact, more than 95% of the money you loan will be repaid within months. With just a $25 donation, you can help eliminate global poverty one business at a time.

Like PlattForm, most companies start with an idea, an entrepreneur and a little cash. As that idea and entrepreneur gains momentum, the money soon follows and the business becomes more viable. At Kiva.org, the entrepreneurs it supports live in impoverished communities, and the small loan is not just helping someone make money, it is helping a community rise above hardship.

Companies like PlattForm are now getting on the Kiva bandwagon. In addition to individuals and families providing loans for these budding entrepreneurs, businesses are using Kiva.org to support people thousands of miles way that have similar goals and interests. BeautySchoolsDirectory.Com lends to entrepreneurs that have businesses in the cosmetics industry. Jalia Mohamedy lives in Tanzania and owns a cosmetics company. The $450 she receives from Kiva lenders like BeautySchoolsDirectory.com will help her purchase haircare products and equipment. In 12 months, Jalia will repay her lenders, who then have the opportunity to give that money to another budding business.

Kiva.org the ultimate “Pay It Forward” and not a bad way to spend $25 of your boss’s money!

I just spent the day meeting with up-and-coming teen leaders from various high schools around Kansas City. Two things to note: 1) kids are a LOT more business savvy than I was when I was seventeen and 2) several of them called me “sir”. So, it’s official. I’m old.

Every year around this time, KC corporate muckety-mucks all clamor to meet some of the area’s (soon-to-be) movers and shakers. Because some of these teens are hard-pressed to choose which Ivy League school to attend, there’s a sense of urgency to pass out your company’s business card. And it’s all thanks to the efforts of the 20/20 Leadership organization … sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation.

When I was a high school senior, I was more interested in attending an upcoming Wham! concert than I was in attending college. These teens, however, are well-educated, well-poised and well-versed in any number of topics. I’m constantly amazed at their ability to look you straight in the eye, give you a firm handshake and then schmooze like there’s no tomorrow.

PlattForm has been involved with 20/20 Leadership for four years now and it’s been interesting to watch its evolution. Since 1993, 20/20 Leadership has helped teens develop all sorts of career-enhancing skills. Their motto? Developing leaders for a lifetime! Since we’re one of the only ad agencies touting our wares at this event, kids occasionally flock to us. And since kids have the attention spans of gnats, I have mere nanoseconds to dazzle them. They absolutely, positively do NOT want to hear that “I fell in to” advertising. They want to know I got the job because of brains, not moxie.

A few years ago, one student quizzed me about internship possibilities. I froze faster than a crank case in February. The questions came fast and furious and I was hard-pressed to answer them. Now, I’m smart enough to bring along an HR representative to dole out PForm’s who/what/when/where/why schpeel. I remember asking why the student was so interested in internships. A brilliant stall tactic on my part! The student coolly replied, “Today’s interns are tomorrow’s junior executives!”

Oh really?

I immediately said, “Well, in the immortal words of George Michael … you gotta have faith!”

The student replied, “Who’s George Michael?”

Mercifully, he scampered to the next booth before I had a chance to hurl my Walkman at him. Ah, youth.

At PlattForm we have a policy that requires each department to blog once a month. I understand why the policy is there, and it’s not too much to ask. One post per month from a department isn’t asking a lot. You don’t want to have a blog that just sits there without ever having new posts on it. The policy is perfectly logical, but is blogging on demand a good policy?

I was reading a book by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel called Naked Conversations. It’s a great book about how to best execute corporate blogging. It stresses disclosure, honesty, authenticity, and other honorable traits. The best part of the book is the Corporate Weblog Manifesto starting on page 192. It’s a concise list of 34 corporate blogging rules. You could skip the book, read the list and speak intelligently on the subject. The first 20 of the 34 results are on Robert Scoble’s blog, but here are some highlights from this manifesto that you might not have considered are:

• Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that’s better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We’ll find it anyway.
• Post fast on good news or bad. Someone say something bad about your product? Link to it—before the second or third site does—and answer its claims as best you can. Same if something good comes out about you. It’s all about building long-term trust. The trick to building trust is to show up! If people are saying things about your product and you don’t answer them, that distrust builds. Plus, if people are saying good things about your product, why not help Google find those pages as well?
• Use a human voice. Don’t get corporate lawyers and PR professionals to cleanse your speech. We can tell, believe me. Plus, you’ll be too slow. If you’re the last one to post, the joke is on you!
• Link to your competitors and say nice things about them. Remember, you’re part of an industry and if the entire industry gets bigger, you’ll probably win more than your fair share of business and you’ll get bigger too. Be better than your competitors—people remember that. I remember sending lots of customers over to the camera shop that competed with me and many of those folks came back to me and said “I’d rather buy it from you, can you get me that?” Remember how Bill Gates got DOS? He sent IBM to get it from DRI Research. They weren’t all that helpful, so IBM said “hey, why don’t you get us an OS?”

and then I saw this one:

• Don’t blog on demand. Is your marketing department demanding that your write about something? Push back. Your blog is your own. Tell the guys in the marketing department to get their own blog if they think they have something people should know. Always make sure it’s you saying something, not someone else. Your are responsible for the content that goes on your blog.

The last one really struck me because, well..that’s what I do. So what do you think? Is he right or is Robert Scoble an idiot? His argument in the book is that forced posts are easy to spot and sound forced. Is that the case on this blog? Thoughts?

Please let me know your thoughts. I’ll be following up on this post. My next one is due March 3rd.